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Wednesday, 21 August 2013

You have the right to remain silent...

You have the right to remain silent. Ah, but we don’t, do we? We are compelled to talk, to relate, to
narrate, to dictate, to gossip, to speculate, to whisper and shout and share. Even those of us who say we don’t, do. How can we not? Even if we don’t talk out loud, the words
come out in other ways – we write, we ‘chat’, we tweet, we sing, we chunter, we
rant and rage or whine and whimper. We
talk to ourselves. We talk in our sleep.

And last night I read this passage (from Your Face Tomorrow by Javier Marias) and it made me smile.

‘If you stop each night to think about what has been told or
recounted to you during the day by the many or few people with whom you have spoken…you
will see how rare it is ever to hear anything of real value or interest or
discernment… Almost everything that everyone says and communicates is humbug or
padding superfluous, commonplace, dull, interchangeable and trite, however much
we feel it to be ‘ours’ and however much people ‘feel the need to express
themselves’… Talking is probably the
biggest waste of time amongst the population as a whole, regardless of age,
sex, class, wealth or knowledge, it
is a wastage par excellence. ‘ [Itals my
own.]

Yet still it seems we need to talk. And mainly we need to talk about ourselves. Rare are the listeners; even rarer are the
askers of questions. I remember once, years back, talking to this
guy, a friend’s boyfriend. Or rather he
talked, and talked and talked and talked.
And it became a game. How long
could we go on with him not asking me one single question. Answer? Four hours.
Yup, I gave him the occasional prompt and off he went. I should have charged him – shrink's rates. J

Is listening a skill?
It certainly helped
me become a relatively successful journalist.
Some might say it makes me a good friend. The key is really to listen – not just to
pretend while waiting impatiently to add your own anecdote or feeling. Most people play verbal ping pong. But then again, listening can be a defence
mechanism – being a good listener is a great way to avoid talking. And I feel uncomfortable talking about
myself. Because, really, what is there
to say? Who cares about my opinions? I don't even care about my opinions that much. What business is it of mine what other people do, say; how they
behave? If my words can help or soothe in
any way, then they’re worth it. But they’re
just words. What use are they,
really? If, instead of offering words, I
could wipe away pain and sickness; if I could take away sadness and
indifference; if I could write large cheques and bestow largesse, then that might
be worthwhile, huh? But I’m helpless –
so I offer words.

Anyhow. See…even I
(who love silence) am not immune. I spew
out words on this blog. It’s one way of
talking without being interrupted (*smile*). Of course you don’t have to listen; nobody
does. That is the really good thing
about this kind of verbiage – it’s easily switched off. J

Why do we talk? Obviously it is useful – on a practical and
evolutionary level. But why do we feel the
need to express ourselves? Why do we need to be heard, to be
understood? Is it ego? Is it all just ego? I did a cursory search online to find out ‘why
people talk’ but drew a blank – or rather I drew an awful lot of people…talking
and not listening. J

What do I think? What
do Iknow? Don’t you love the ambiguity of that
phrase? Let me italicise the I to add some emphasis, to make
the nuance clear. What do I know? I guess sometimes we talk purely for comfort –
against the cold, against the sheer nothingless, against oblivion. Chitchat, the murmuring of words, shared
laughter, the everyday, the inanity even, soothes like a warm bath, like the
burn of brandy down the throat. We know
that ultimately we’re all alone but talking, with the right people, those who
we feel *get* us, dispels the cold - just for a little while. It’s like an inferior form of holding.

And not everything is dross or commonplace or trite. Sometimes someone says something that stops you
in your tracks. That makes you go ‘Oh’
and then sometimes ‘yes’. And not just
because you have the urge to go ‘Oh yes, me too,’ and then launch into your own anecdote or diatribe, but because it makes you want to go away and ponder quietly. And I guess that’s why I don’t vanish into
silence entirely. And I guess that’s why
I continue chuntering into the void because, every so often, someone says
something in response to my inanity that …chimes.

Anyhow. How about you? Talker? Listener? Any idea why we, as a species, have the talk urge?